Excavation Continues at a Fast Pace

It was beautiful at the temple site this afternoon, a balmy 36 degrees, literally twice as warm was it was last night.  The warmer air has pushed away the haze.  

The retaining wall is being extended across the north lot.  The track hoe in the background worked furiously.

The trench along the north has been widened significantly in the last few days.  The men in this photo had on dress slacks.  I'm guessing they weren't there to work.

This is the track hoe in the north lot, although this picture was taken 30 minutes later when I was on the west side.  Notice that he is lifting, with some difficulty, the ground beneath him.  

When he loosened a chunk, he lifted it high into the air and dropped it so he could put the pieces in a dump truck.  It was thrilling to watch, but then, I don't have much of a life.

This is a telescopic view through gaps in the foundation from the north.  What we are seeing is the southern interior wall which has been excavated.

This is the southern trench from the east.  Lots of work was happening here today and I hope the men in the dress slacks were impressed.  Notice the end of a pipe in the wall of the trench on the left side of the photo.  Along the trench wall near the bucket of the track hoe you can see wires protruding from the dirt.  This area was under First South.

This hydraulic concrete-chipper moved like an armored transport out of a Star Wars movie.  The track hoe gracefully and quickly moved wherever he wanted to in the trench, carefully removing the original foundation and exposing the piers.

I feel sad pointing out that these foundation stones were put in place by the hands of our pioneer ancestors.

Workmen were all over the place today, crawling in and out of the building and dodging the trucks.  The red ladder is actually used for access, and while I'd be willing to operate a machine, I'm not so willing to climb that ladder.

Notice that the piers are metal casings.  Since I've been watching for months now, I know they are filled with cement.  In scrolling through earlier pictures, those in the know have pointed out rebar which strengthened the concrete.

Please notice our clean air in this picture!  Provo has suffered from a 10-day inversion. The deep snow kept the haze-filled air close to the ground.  Any snow you see on the temple has been hanging around for 12 days.  This view from the west side shows a forklift carrying wood to extend the northern retaining wall.  I observed that the western side is the main thoroughfare for the dump trucks which remove the dirt excavated from the northern trench.  The other three sides have been excavated, but not the west side.

The southern trench  is seen here from the west.  So much was going on at the site today that I had to pull myself away when it was time to go.

The track hoe continuously pulled dirt from the interior and staged it on the southern side of the trench, where the large track hoe lifted it out of the trench and dumped it in trucks.

This photo was taken about a half hour after I took a view of this trench from University.  By this time the pipe had been completely exposed, and the wires were fair game for the track hoe.

Dump trucks are an essential part of the activity at the site.  Without them, the work of excavation would stop.  They lined up on First West and took turns entering the site to receive their loads.  The speed at which the track hoe could load the trucks was amazing.  A continuous stream of dump trucks passed me while I was at the site today.